The day after our March, it was time to change gears a bit and recover. After a satisfying breakfast, it was time to head off to Bermondsey, meet up with Death Marchers that remained ambulatory, and do the Bermondsey Beer Mile, adding another handful of miles visiting eight different breweries as we relaxed from the previous day’s hike. However, mid-way through our Beer Mile, we ended up back at the Maltby Street Market for a short lunch break. While there are many great food options to be had there, like 40 Maltby, this time we had a more specific destination, and menu item in mind. It was finally time to get a bacon sandwich from St John.

You occasionally find some interesting hidden items in London, sometimes even hidden in plain sight. St Georges Square is a relatively modest Square in Pimlico, and contains the Pimlico Garden, which aside from a modest statue representing "Boredom rising from the bath", isn’t of much note itself. But on the North end of the garden lies one of the few remaining examples of an anachronism: a Cabmen’s Shelter Fund Cab Shelter. Basically a small shelter containing a seating area for cab drivers on their break, and a cooking area (often staffed by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, historically, these days often contracted out), these little shelters used to be fairly common all over London, with over 60 of them in the early 1900s. They aren’t as common now (only 13 of them remain in service), but for a small handful of them, the caterers in them are also open to the public, selling the same food out of a window that they sell to the cabbies. St George’s Square has one of these, a business called Alf’s Pitstop, who sells a variety of sandwiches and drinks to the public.

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I really like bacon. Not just any bacon, either, but good bacon (if anything, I’ve been annoyed by the current bacon trend, since it mostly seems to be emphasizing quantity over quantity; putting three strips of bacon on something doesn’t automatically make it better). No, my bacon needs to be made from a quality pork belly that’s got nice layering of fat and lean. It needs to be thick sliced. It needs to nicely smoked and cured, generally with some nice robust flavors. And it needs to be properly cooked. Most places serving me up some bacon fail on one of these. But I’m lucky enough to live in New England, which actually has several purveyors of really top quality bacon. For example, I’m a huge fan of the various bacons (in particular the cob-smoked bacon) from North Country Smokehouse down the road from me in Claremont, NH. Similarly, two local companies, Garfield’s Smokehouse in Plainfield, NH, and Vermont Smoke and Cure in Hinesburg, VT. But there’s one place in New England that, when my travels allow, I stop by for bacon and a sandwich: Nodine’s Smokehouse in Goshen, CT.

After an April filled with trips to Austin and San Francisco, it was time to take a break and spend a little more time exploring my local area. In this case, it meant heading down to Stonewall Farm in Keene, NH, for their annual “Dance of the Ladies”. Having been in the barn all winter, this is the first time the cows have been in the pasture all year, and they generally respond with manic bounding and “dancing”, as well as the occasional head-butting and just hanging out. It was rather a cool sight, actually, and you can check out flickr photos of the event. But afterward, we were craving a breakfast, and decided that this would be a good opportunity to cross the river and see what we could find in Brattleboro, VT. After driving about a bit, we happened across Elliot Street Cafe. Nestled into a small building that, from the presence of a large pizza oven, apparently used to be a pizza joint, Elliot is a modest little neighborhood cafe with a decent breafast menu, with a selection of burritos, omelets, biscuits, bacon, and other breakfast sandwiches and wraps…

My first morning in San Francisco, I decided that it was time to knock Dynamo Donuts off of my hit list. I had been craving a trip to Dynamo Donuts since reading about them on David Lebovitz’s blog almost three years ago. Luckily, it’s only about a mile away from Steve and Emily’s place, and they’ve been there several times, so it wasn’t hard to convince Emily to come with me for a trip to Dynamo. Located in the Eastern part of the Mission, Dynamo is a little bit of an odd fit, being located in a block that’s mostly various Latin American restaurants and stores. But being the Mission, this isn’t too out of place (if I had to pick the two major types of dining establishments in this part of town, “taqueria” and “coffee shop” are probably on the top of the list). It’s also a fairly subtle storefront, being basically just a short ordering counter and a door that leads both inside, and through to a nice patio in back (that’s easy to miss). But really, it’s about the donuts anyways…

I’m always astonished that here in the United States we don’t do more with bacon. We have a large pork industry. People here also really like bacon, and many of us eat a little too much of it to be considered healthy. But at most grocery stores I go to, there is generally just one type of bacon: “bacon.” If you’re lucky, there are a few brands, some more thickly sliced than others. Maybe some token peppered bacon or maple bacon. But in general, we live in a bacon wasteland. To quote a coworker of mine, “bacon is bacon, it’s a commodity.” Oh, how sorely wrong he is…

Random Post

For the last several years, I’ve been doing a lot of travel through LAX, and generally I’ll get a hotel room in El Segundo the night. As a result, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to explore Manhattan Beach (the next town over). Several times, I’ve walked by Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, but have been unable to try it out since I was there in the evening, and my flight times in the morning have been early enough to prohibit a breakfast visit. Until last week, when I had an outgoing flight at a much more comfortable 8:25 in the morning, allowing me to have a quick trip to Uncle Bill’s right as they opened.